Tondela welcomed in celebration after winning the II League
Around four thousand people were waiting for the Tondela bus, which arrived at the João Cardoso stadium at around 2:30 am this Saturday, in a festive atmosphere with fireworks, to welcome the champions of the II Football League.
It was almost 2:30 am when the Tondela bus began to appear behind the João Cardoso Stadium, in Tondela, next to the parking lot where the club's store is located, in the space that was improvised for the promotion and title celebrations of the II League.
The music “We are the Champions” by the band Queen vibrated at high decibels from the speakers, and then around four thousand people echoed “Homem do leme”, by the Portuguese band Xutos & Pontapés, the song that the fans started singing at the end of the club’s last games, dedicated to the coach, Luís Pinto, this night marked by fireworks.
“After the amount of people that went to the stadium, we were expecting there to be even more here, because I wasn’t expecting to see so many people in Leiria,” Luís Pinto admitted to Lusa news agency, as he got off the bus. The Tondela coach was then “smothered” by the fans, who lacked the vocabulary to thank and congratulate the “man at the helm”.
With a hoarse voice, “from shouting so much during the game, but also from the party”, the coach was the face of joy and when asked by the Lusa news agency if he would be at Tondela next season, the fans responded: “Of course! We’re going to the Europa League next year”. “Today is a day of celebration, I’ll deal with the rest later”, Luís Pinto told Lusa.
The captain, Ricardo Alves, also did not want to talk about the future, but he told Lusa news agency that he was very happy about returning to the I Liga, a championship he previously played for Tondela, a team he has played for since the 2018/19 season. “I am very happy with this outcome, after being relegated three years ago, it is an inexplicable feeling”, he added.
Before the arrival of the 15 buses that went to the Magalhães Pessoa Stadium, in Leiria, the parking lot already had more than 300 fans, including several children, before midnight.
“The first half didn’t go very well, but the second half was better,” Benedita Melo, aged eight, told Lusa. She was there to greet one of her favourite players, Costinha, as well as Miro and Hélder Tavares, both “neighbours in the building”.
Nobody moved, because, justified Isabel Ferreira, for “those who suffered so many consecutive matches and waited almost 90 minutes for Tondela to win, it doesn’t hurt to wait [another] two hours”.
The one who wasn't really in the mood to wait was Rúben Figueiredo, who is getting married today, and had to "really" go to bed very early, especially because she isn't even a Tondela fan and will hardly understand her heartbeat" for the club from the Beira region.
“She’s not from here and she’s a Benfica fan, so next season, our hearts at home will be divided. We’ll have to have a lot of respect for each other, but I believe we can do it,” said the fan.
Maria Silva left Porto at the end of lunch and in her trunk she carried hundreds of scarves and “small vuvuzelas” to sell at the Tondela festival. And if she didn’t win? “Well, then the loss would be huge!”, she admitted.
“But I asked Our Lady of Fátima for so much. I only asked her for two sips, nothing more, and she listened to me and now next weekend I will go there to thank her, because she, once again, did what I asked, and I asked so much during dinner”, he said.
Tondela was crowned champion of the II Football League by beating União de Leiria 2-0, in a match on the 34th round of the championship in which it added 64 points, thus returning to the I League in which it was between 2015 and 2022.
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